Page 63 of The Breakup Artists

Not two seconds later, his reply flashes on my screen.

Bentley

YES.

A warm tingle vibrates through my chest. I’m considering what to type back when my front door opens.

This time I don’t get up. “Back already? Decided I was right about bringing your favorite paint color: smitten-faced red?” I say, attempting to make light of the whole thing.

“Smitten for whom?” my mom asks, and once again I jump like someone threw ice down my shirt.

“Oh, nothing. Thought you were August,” I say quickly.

Mom places a shopping bag on the mail table. “Is August dating someone?” she asks over her shoulder like it’s a happy surprise.

“Uh...” I scramble for a believable response, one that has nothing to do with the job I’ve been lying about for two years. But when she turns to face me, I forget all about Summer Love because her cheeks and nose are splotchy. “Have you beencrying?”

“Crying?” she repeats back and touches her face as if to check. “Oh, that. Just some old pictures got me weepy. Nothing to be alarmed about.”

I stand, glancing at her bag suspiciously. Mom isn’t a sentimental crier—not at movies, not at baby showers, not at freaking weddings. In fact, the only time I’ve ever seen her cry is when her father passed. “What old pictures?”

“Some shots I just picked up from Sal’s Photolab. I was going through them in the car before I came in,” she replies, breaking eye contact with me and kicking off her ballet flats. “So tell me about this person August’s dating.”

“You never cry.”

She laughs. “Everyone cries, Valentine, even me.” And she looks at me expectantly to tell her about August, making me doubly nervous.

“It’s new,” I say, trying to sound casual. “He won’t even admit that he likes her.”

She leans in, like this is very important gossip. “Is that why he borrowed your Jeep? Does he have a date?”

My stomach wobbles in an unpleasant way. Lying for the greater good in our case adventures is one thing, but lying to my parents is different. I’ve gotten really good at never mentioning anything in front of them that would inspire questioning exactly so I wouldn’t have to lie. When they ask about catering, I shrug and say, “Just work. Nothing special. Money is good.” They think I work for one of the huge Boston companies that service both the North and South Shore. It’s a prominent enough company that they feel satisfied, but just boring enough that they don’t pry.

“That big a deal, huh?” she says when I don’t respond.

“I, um. You know how private he is. I think he’d be embarrassed if I told you.”

She considers it and nods. “Okay, well, if and when it does become a thing, I’d love to meet...” She holds her hand out.

“Ella,” I say and suddenly feel extra weird that I told the truth.

“Ella,” she repeats, and I drop back onto the couch, guilt nipping at my insides.

32

august

Ella’s house is oddly imposing without all the party guests and cars. I pull to a stop in the circle at the end of her long driveway, half expecting a butler with coattails to pop out and offer assistance.

I step out of Tiny’s Jeep and follow the path to Ella’s front door, staring warily at the endless white stone. Super rich people make me nervous. Super rich houses make me feel like my shoes are made of banana peels.

The doorbell mimics the sound of church bells, and it only takes a second before a woman in a maid’s uniform answers. She shows me inside, leading me through the round living room and out to the pool deck, where Ella is sunbathing in a lawn chair.

“Oh, hey,” Ella says, sitting up and lifting her sunglasses to the top of her damp hair like she’s the lead in an eighties movie.

She’s wearing a simple black one-piece, the type of bathing suit you might do laps in, but the smooth skin of her bare legs and arms makes it hard to look away.

Women are beautiful, sometimes in a way that steals your breath and makes your heart stutter. The way their necks curve into their collarbones and their hands are so much softer than mine. The way their hair smells good and their bodies curve. But even though I can appreciate their beauty, I never seem to connect in a way that makes me reach out, fumble to hold their hands, or ask if I can kiss them. Not the way Tiny does where she’ll date someone and lose herself in the person for a while. It’s not that I don’t want to lose myself; it’s that I don’t know how. Or maybe I don’t want to let go. Either way, I’ve never been good at romance. The truth of it just doesn’t reach me somehow.